Does this help at an airshow?

So a buddy of mine took a shot of a guy shooting an air show a few days ago in Texas...i have posted the image below. Both flashes were firing....i'm trying to understand exactly what this is accomplishing....anyon​e?

IMAGE LINK: http://www.rudiholt.co​m …062246&k=S2hKRf​c&lb=1&s=A

How would that even help? Lets see the planes are what a quarter of mile away.

Morse code to pilots saying things like "bank left".

LOL

Bet he gets those wonderful catch lights in the pilots eyes

I saw that setup and was wondering the same thing. Wonder if he just left the setup in place after the pre-dawn Photo Tour the show offered? Didn't see him carrying it around then, but I was preoccupied trying to get my own shots (sans any flash - something I meant to bring) setup.

Not something I would expect to see, nor be seen using in that situation. Maybe it balanced properly in that configuration but other than that I don't get it.

Where's flyingphotog when you need him to answer a question?


I bet he has that like that so no matter if it is coming left to right or, right to left he gets it frozen with the short durations,,,,,,,,,LOL Cool setup though

Be awesome if his watermark was Redeye Photography.

I thought I had seen it all when I spotted a bunch of pre-teens using the flashes on their P&S's outside the LAX In-n-out.

cuda2k wrote in post #17236456
I saw that setup and was wondering the same thing. Wonder if he just left the setup in place after the pre-dawn Photo Tour the show offered?

I'm thinking the same thing.

I have seen a few people using flash on their cameras at airshows - there was a guy near me at Duxford this year with a 1DX and 500mm L glass with his canon speedlight firing away throughout the show. Not that it had the recycle time to keep up with his almost constant burst mode.

He seemed to think it made a diference when asked about it, haven't seen his photos so he may be right though I wouldn't have thought it would. He had a lot more kit (and a lot more expensive kit) than me so either knew what he was talking about or has more money to burn on gear than most

Also lots of tablets and phones with the flash on too.

So that's how I should be dealing with back lighting! As someone already said, ain't gona work on a plane flying a quarter mile away.

Bit OT but i once saw a "press photographer" from our local rag shooting outdoors at an event, in good daylight, with a flash switched on and working, but pointing straight up! I didn't like to point out that flash might actually work better if it were actually pointing at the subject. It looked like a 1 series digital camera with L glass too. I guess the paper must have given them the camera. I was there enjoying the event with my kids, not taking photos.

Alan